According to Richard Pau-Llosa, Carter's "'stairs' paintings operate through a complex sequence of tropes. The initial apprehension of the paintings is ruled by the idea of juxtaposition, which gives way to that of metonymy, as deep, arcane resemblances between two elements are revealed...There is no attempt in these works to unite the ovoid and its architectural setting through formal similitude of any kind; rather, Carter represents stair and ovoid as dissimilar earthly symbols of the infinite. As such, they are paradoxical and ironic—both eggs and stairs are functional, everyday objects, yet a thorough reading of their intersection in these paintings reveals deeper similarities and connotations." ("The Recent Years: The Ovoid—Symbol as Structure of Thought," in F.A. Trapp, D. Dreishpoon, R. Pau-Llosa, Clarence Holbrook Carter, New York, 1971, p. 44)